TIFF or JPEG??

[wil]

When Inporting photo's from my Camara Should I upload as a TIFF file or JPEG. If I use the TIFF format can I open and arter it then re-save incase I'm not done with it yet. The reason I'm asking is this is because I dont wont the loss of quilty in the image, but I still want the ability to open and fix.

One more question. If you save as a TIFF can you resave in other formats.

Thanks

[Big Mike]

I believe that Tiff is a lossless format, so yes you can open, work on & save the file without loosing quality. Jpeg files lose some quality each time they are saved.

You can always save the file in a different format. Typically you want to start with and work on the highest quality image but when you want to print it or display on the web, a different format may be the best choice. It is even a good idea to save different copies of your image files. The original file from the camera is like a negative, you keep it safe and make a copy to work on. That way you can always go back to the original.

[wil]

Thanks Mike, Is TIFF the desired format I know it will be a bigger file?

[Mike Jordan]

Even if the the image is in jpeg when you get it from the camera, you can save it as a tiff and not lose any quaility. In fact, you can open and save a jpeg a number of times before any loss of quaility is seen. As long as you save it at the max quality setting. Back when most jpegs were about 3 mpixels, one of the magizines did a test of opening and saving back a jpeg image until noticable degradation was noted. It was a number of times. They kept doing it until the degradation got to the point that it affected the image. It's a number of openings from when it can be seen under test conditions and when it actually becomes a problem in most cases. Now that a lot of image files are 6 to 8 mpixel, there are even more pixels that can be thrown away before it's noticable.

So don't get paranoid about having to open and save a jpeg image a few times. Most of the time it won't even be noticable.

Mike

[wil]

You only lose quilty when you resave right? If I open a file and work on it the click "save as" It should not change the original file, only if I "save" over the original. Basicly what I'm saying is, if I open an image, click "duplicate", "copy" and close out the original and do all my modification to the copy. The original stays unchanged no mater how many times its opened and closed as long as I don't open & save w/ the original.

[Mike Jordan]

Right, if you do not overwrite the original, it will not lose any quality. When I'm working on images, I usually end up with several versions. From the original Raw file, to the converted 16 bit tiff file, to a couple of work files, to the one that will be printed and one that will go on the internet. If I don't plan on printing it I'll skip the one for printing. Sometimes after I get done, several hundred megs of images will have grown to 4 or 5 gigs of images. It's a good thing disk drives are relatively cheap.

Mike